Tony Gilroy created “Andor”’s ‘Rebellions are built on hope’ origin story after his son mocked him

• Andor gives an origin story to one of the most memorable lines of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

• This wasn’t originally in the script because Tony Gilroy thought the line had originated somewhere else in canon.

• But when his son mocked him for not knowing his lore, he realized he had to add it.

“Rebellions are built on hope.”

It’s an iconic rejoinder in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. First, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) says it to Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) when he explains they’ll have to hope her name is enough to get them an audience with Saw Guerrera (Forest Whitaker).

Later, Jyn uses the phrase when she’s trying to convince the Rebel council to greenlight the mission to capture the Death Star plans.

Now, Andor has added an extra layer to the echoing notion of “hope” throughout the galaxy. In episode 8, “Who Are You?”, Cassian travels back to Ghorman, this time using the pseudonym of a journalist. There, he encounters the same bellhop, Thela (Stefon Crepon), he met back in episode 5.

Thela recognizes Cassian, but he doesn’t blow his cover. When Cassian tells Thela that he hopes things work out for him, Thela replies, “Rebellions are built on hope,” inventing a rallying cry to action.

However, this was never part of creator Tony Gilroy’s master plan. In fact, he added it to the season 2 scripts after his son teased him about it. “My son is a big Star Wars fan, and he often comes to the house and busts my balls at the computer about how little I know,” Gilroy explains. “One day he’s there at the house and he’s goofballing on me, and he’s like, ‘Well, who’s going to introduce ‘rebellions are built on hope’?”

“And I go, ‘What do you mean?'” Gilroy continues. “He goes, ‘Well, in Rogue One, Diego says it. And Jyn repeats it.’ And I go, ‘Well, isn’t that from somewhere?’ He goes, ‘No, man, what are you talking about? You better figure that out.'”

By the time they had this conversation, Gilroy didn’t have a ton of runway left in his writing, so he decided to give it to the minor character of this bellhop fighting for his people in Ghorman. “The hotel clerk is such a groovy little character,” he says. “It definitely comes from my son busting me on not having it in earlier [scripts]. I was like, ‘Good catch.’ So that’s where it comes from.”

For Luna, however, it marked an important grace note in Cassian Andor’s journey, one that adds extra resonance to the line as said in Rogue One. “It’s such a powerful line,” the actor says. “That’s why I think watching Rogue One after seeing season 2, it’s going to be so powerful for audiences. Everything is going to be fully charged.”

“Things like this, a line that was already memorable, now, damn, the face of this kid is going to come to you when you hear it,” Luna continues. “And that sacrifice behind every line. When we study revolutions, we tend to focus a lot on the moment when they happen, but the history behind them is what’s actually interesting.”

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“That’s what this piece of writing does,” he reflects. “It tells you like, ‘Yes, of course we care about those who sacrificed everything for those plans.’ But the sacrifice of all these people is behind them. And that’s when this story becomes crucial. It’s going to make [watching Rogue One and A New Hope] more personal for you as an audience because now you have all these images and memories.”

So, now the Force — and this bit of dialogue — will be with you always.

Additional reporting by Dalton Ross.

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